The Freedom to Love: The Life and Vision of Catherine Harding

Catherine had already experienced a rich life and raised five children, when in 1991 she met the English philosopher and mystic Douglas Harding. She had lived through the occupation of France and the death of her beloved father in World War II. A few years later, in Paris, she met and married Driss Chraïbi, who was to become one of Morocco’s most renowned writers. When the marriage ended she went to India to study under the yoga teacher B. K. S. Iyengar. On her return to Paris she was persuaded to attend a workshop on the Headless Way presented by Douglas Harding…Catherine's life story provides a backdrop to the direct and practical experiments of perceiving who we really are, found in the appendix to this book and developed by Harding. Catherine brought a feminine voice to Douglas' teachings and together they introduced countless people to the art of Seeing, conducting workshops throughout the world until his death in 2007.Karin Visser met Catherine in 2014 and their conversations inspired this book: ‘More and more,' Catherine tells Karin, ‘I realize that I am not Catherine, the little Catherine. I am the eternal universal consciousness, experiencing life in the form of Catherine, just as you are the universal consciousness experiencing being you. At the root of ourselves we are this clear universal consciousness.’About the authorKarin Visser is the chief editor of the Dutch non-dual magazine InZicht, founder of The Headless Café, poet and workshop leader. In her mid-twenties she started to enquire into the big question in life. After a search through books, meditation and therapy she met Jeru Kabbal, founder of the Clarity Process. She became his long-term student and wrote The Quest for Clarity (published in English and in Dutch) at his request. Jeru trained her to lead Clarity retreats, which she did for many years across Europe.She was inspired to live in a spiritual community in Canada for seven years. Increasingly realising that this did not bring her any closer to the truth, she returned home to The Netherlands. Shortly afterwards, she came into contact with The Headless Way. She recognised in Harding’s experiments a radical breakthrough for spiritual seekers, enabling them to see directly who they truly are. She now runs the online community known as The Headless Café and shares ‘Seeing’.Karin gives workshops and talks at home in The Netherlands and abroad. You can contact her through her website: www.headlesscafe.info.Catherine has so much wisdom, about suffering, about love, about what really matters. This is a beautiful, wise, gorgeous book that I encourage people to read. Very highly recommended.Joan Tollifson, author of Nothing to Grasp, Painting the Sidewalk with Water